Glendale approves controversial 'comfort women' memorial

Over the objections of dozens of Japanese-Americans who crowded City Hall chambers, the Glendale City Council voted Tuesday to install a controversial memorial at Glendale Central Park honoring "comfort women" -- a euphemism for the mostly Korean women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II.

"I think we're doing the right thing," Councilman Frank Quintero said. "I'm very proud of the city of Glendale."

Aside from Quintero, council members Zareh Sinanyan, Ara Najarian and Laura Friedman voted to let the Korean American Forum of California, a nonprofit human rights organization, fund and build a memorial on a plot of land adjacent to the park's Adult Recreation Center.

"We're taking a meaningful step to show our moral support, sense of camaraderie, and our sharing of the pain that our Korean-American brothers and sisters feel about this issue," Sinanyan said.

"I don't see this as designed to be a monument to shame Japan," Friedman added. "What happened to those girls was a tragedy, and that's what this monument is about."

Mayor Dave Weaver cast the lone dissenting vote -- not because he opposed the memorial, but because he refuses to approve any construction at the park until a master plan is developed.

Dozens of Japanese-Americans addressed the council, many of them denying that comfort women existed, even though historians believe about 200,000 women and girls -- mostly Koreans, but also Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipina and Dutch (from the then-Dutch colony of Indonesia) -- were rounded up and forced into brothels where they were raped and tortured by Japanese soldiers.

The Japanese government issued a formal apology in 1993.

Yoshi Miyake, 60, a massage therapist from Los Angeles, warned the memorial would "bring out hate crimes and conflict."

"Comfort ladies were nothing more than prostitutes," he added, drawing applause from some members of the crowd.

Andy Naoki, 63, a tour guide from East L.A. warned Glendale that it would appear to the world as a "city praising prostitution."

Few Korean-Americans spoke during the council meeting, but dozens of them posed for pictures on the steps of Glendale City Hall after the vote.

They held up signs saying "End Sexual Slavery" and "Government of Japan Must Apologize!"

The memorial will be unveiled July 30, and a surviving comfort woman will attend the ceremony. It will be a replica of the famous "peace monument" that Korean civic leaders erected across the street from the Japanese Embassy in Seoul in 2001, near where surviving comfort women have held a protest every Wednesday for more than 20 years.

The peace monument is a bronze statue of a teenage girl wearing traditional Korean attire, hands in her lap, feet bare and sitting on a chair.

Andrew Kim, a member of the KAF, stressed the organization does not want to strain relations between Koreans and Japanese.

"We are a human rights organization and our mission is to promote public awareness of this issue," he said.

KAF President Joachim Youn said he was proud that the council heard both sides of the issue, and voted in the end to approve the memorial.

"That's why I'm so proud of being a citizen," he said. "A 4-1 vote, God help us -- we really, really appreciate that."